Category Archives: Imagism

“Questions”

Questions mount in compliments, the third’s irrelevant: To be or not to be, to seek the seen or unseen or not to see at all; so, what’s a circus in a world without eternity? Then, again, even if no one’s here still the monitor’s adamant Unequivocal nothing has happened–so what’s the point? And were you here beside me, would I then need sleep, Awake but to open my mouth and sing? Would I seek another deep Abyss within, impose a curfew on the thing or casually anoint The latest impasse with a casual kiss? There’s a Judas in this; His days are numbered with the dusts, the rust of wrinkled Inevitability with excess housed in reliquaries of gold Whence comes the latest least expected crop Of shibboleths, coined and counted; there we’ll be atop the list Some two branches on the tree, twin tokens found, no other sound, And when I go you’ll miss the show, and who’ll lay me in the ground?

“The Test”

The test is in the poem’s weight, nothing equitable but fair, And in and of itself an offering, a discrete particle in an innocuous conceit Upon some higher power in the substance that in its sleep Has left the path and all the usual signs and banners with little thought or care To what it means to shoot the moon and sun, to know what has came To pass to mirror movements of the moment; receivers quickly feign Reaction to the pen and page and all such shibboleths as questions beg the reign Of order in a desperate bid for substance and recognition inertia that sustains Momentum in the swamp and swell of ownership by a simple dint of will: Mindless arbitration comes to mind as sparks defining truth spill Words and destinies and budding paradigms, the seed and fruit of every hill. Both will measure every valley undetected, unrestrained. The eye, the plume, the generations of the word itself must all reveal An effortless encounter of win and lose no matter what the deal.

“Yes”

Yes. So much as I can see staring Eastward across the waters that later touch the Holy Land, still, in the early briefer hour I cannot remember its equal. Standing here alone in endless fields of wheat and corn from where I feel an overweening rage Westward, miles between those twin skyline cauldrons, and swells upwelling heat and sweat in anxious presage: something coming! sweet release. My body aches. I cannot stop the prayer beyond the syllables―light and lightning, cheaper thrills, the instant comfort and relief of ice-cold waters of an irrigation ditch.

I should not be here, but am I, and nothing in this heart could be disarmed, alarmed or warned to cede to what appears and never once makes sense.

No. I see them, righteous boiling mountains not of rock; no trees, no streams, no mirage― no poetic soul’s terse natural verse here while there, but two whirling dervishes from the West, floods of supra-natural flotsam, mitred clouds with stains of seed in florid green to punctuate potential, a pure perspicuous majestyand they stare at me…

Their hour is come. It is their mercurial summons I hear, its first flush reaching for me and I have no fear. And in this empty plain, a place where I’m forgotten, my early exile, this beside the point as I stand here, within the hour, I’ll breathe, I’ll cry, I’ll laugh,and damn the lightning,
I’ll survive!

“His Days In Office”

His days in office draw him closer to himself; He knows he’ll finish what he long ago began,And now? Well, now the dusts and sands Sequestered in the hourglass run low, the shelf Awaits, perhaps in this hall or on the other wall Among the former Oval Offices eulogized And honoured, and after all, who imagines perpetuity? No surprise In this, and nothing to be done but heed the last election’s call. He knows exactly what he’s done, and he recalls The early years when nothing hinted at the fall Of institutions or what his fellows thought when one and all, They outdid themselves before his very eyes. Wthal, Their thoughts so tersely croaked upon the twigs of some fine November’s day, Are odd reminders that values change, and curds dissolve in all that whey.

“Now Mark the Man’s Credentials”

Now mark the man’s credentials as he speaks To pacify the greater numbers in the act Within the sport of words, his only ammunition, the facts Of light within his arbitrary audience. In this he cheats Himself and all that is of simplicity, the one And indivisible beyond the Sadrat’ul-Muntahá, the point By Whom the conscious constant cursive case of time appoints Both upper and lower worlds and effortlessly runs Within Itself this generations’s needs Deposited, seeds of what will be in fields, in mountains locked, And from which, freely, fire and ice withdraws their stocks. Creation surely finds the end in deeds. If in the breath there is not proof enough To others witnessed, what is it to be Amongst us all beyond mere mortal toil or immortal fee And foils alike, these gems are simple stones. And it is true that all have rights to speak? If life is worth beholding to a saint, Thus then reckon life worth living with no complaint, A longer extended cut along the grain For some; a sculpted verse, splinters carved, a life In words of fine complexion for others while the knife And chisel complete their commission in omission, again In elimination to capture something safe,astounds, Contraband of observation and objects more or less For all the world in waiting; certitude’s with us, My friend, in likelihood a likeness have they have found A last and least messiah blindly plucked, jury duty in the crowd. They must, if blind duty binds, expose the cloud Above the clods whereon he sits uncrowned By all but his delusion, angels’ muted corkscrews and horns Release the cork of new and untried bottles for every eye and ear to see And hear upon the virgin bow of a ship which no one will believe Is reason enough for this and one fine statue placed. Gifted verses do not make the tale. Ananias, lo! to you I speak in verse To forsake this prophesy live or even worse.

—Once

The only way to deal with an unfair world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. –Albert Camus

“Sans Settling of the Sum”

Sans settling of the sum, no silent night; The cold and darkest midnight, no brightest sun Regained upon the freshness of a morning run From first awakenings to the duties of the light. Sans route and paths to shorelines, fishermen Cast no net nor fruit upon the table there Beneath the candle and the moonbeam; no joyful stares Of wide-eyed eager mouths to take the bread, no beds For doting families there to cradle and caress the children; No willing intimacy in loving parents, no hopeful news. And yet, of course, comes danger from the sea, The stormy petrol cries in certain seasons that must be Harbingers of hurricane and trial, what we choose To call the birth pains in a loving mother: nature in herself brings waste. Her ends must come before beginnings, her gifts but ballast tossed in haste.

“Silversmiths”

Silversmiths retrace the fire; sweats In rivulets down brawny arms, twin bushes To the chin and through the valley of the pectorals; and he pushes
Gyres in the waters; determination defeats defect, fatigue, frets Along the instrument mould the

shining of a gentle mind’s design, Undone, the fist and fingers as hammers in the process Till the thing that was not is and what little rest In thought becomes the thing, itself, the line, A cut above a cusp between inspiration And its final destruction. Destination, oh! the beauty of the thing Will guide his hands securely and the synthesis, the ring Of something new or newer makes its run from mental registration To obsession in the finishing and glories to polish a wondrous sign, A medallion of conception, some fine image formed of inner space and time.

“Accolades”

There are no lasting accolades for what occurs
Before discovery, precedents to concepts, antecedents to the rank of names.
Armies of delusions gather at dusk or dawn—semi-colons it seems—but the aim
Of all is change and nothing seems more real nor more absurd
Than that the sun simply is and continues to be. Perceptions, artefacts,
A vast compendia of condescending clues confound perfections
housed in all the usual places.
Conceptions rear palatial visions, rise and all but disappear where fear displaces
Inner sight and gainsays personal sovereignty. Look again and act
Upon a limpid canvas, more, a pristine marble so easily cut and again defaced
By innuendo or what pacifies the common view
of every art and all science in the debris of afterglow; if judged immortal,
What, then, of the beauty of a single rose reborn through centuries, millennia, yet reduced, detritus as investment in a single angry fist? The bridge and portal
Through which both eyes view and progress signs can never be erased.
Creation’s grace is testimony to the morning of eternity; oneness firmly grasped
Ensures velocity, immunity, and detachment from all that’s passed.

“Occam’s Rasor”

Occam’s rasor, yes, perhaps, but what else is there
Between stepping-stones, zeniths, the nadirs,
Putting aside in-betweens, shafts of spears—
Another road less taken and that one trampled—toxic airs,
Steps that lead in either direction, fares
Compared to desiccation, dreams that disappear.
Sooner than later as choice replaces truth, fears
When hybris meets hamartia? Where tares
And thistles abound, rents, ashes, the cardinal numbers
Spread themselves among the ordinals and seem to sin no more.
Even so? What of these, the inevitables, these inescapable nemeses?
Step forward, then. Discover the reason for the second step; where emphasis is on the first. The second? A third? Awake, the final unction’s found in slumber; Asleep, the hours promise the penultimate hour, remembrances of the final door.

“You Own the Year”

You own the year and years before you As I the year and all that’s passed; Your signs are rising, eternity is steadfast.Quo vadis, then? I who serve eternities am overruled By sheer numbers, countless previous dispensations viewed In retrospect and circumspect in vast And spacious notions of impermanence and impasse. I see before the fact in part, imperfectly at present, pursued By spoils of the war and coupled with a dubious acquired taste For bitters, an acerbic memory gained close at hand or lost at sea. Nothing in this world is or is so stable That it is not utterly dependent, created, removed and recreated on the table Of bounties throughout creation; what God has willed to use or waste Shall be not be more or less than what it is and what is not shall never be.*

***

* “Protect me, O my Lord, from every evil that Thine omniscience perceiveth, inasmuch as there is no power nor strength but in Thee, no triumph is forthcoming save from Thy presence, and it is Thine alone to command. Whatever God hath willed hath been, and that which He hath not willed shall not be.

There is no power nor strength except in God, the Most Exalted, the Most Mighty.”

–His HolinessThe Báb, Selections from the Writings of the Báb, pp. 190-191

Bahá’í Scriptures and Readnings

Bahá’í Writings for Morning and Evening
Readings of Scriptures and Writings from the Centres of the Bahá’í Faith to be read in fulfillment of the requirement incumbent upon all Bahá’ís that they read from the Creative Word every morning and ever evening…

Everybody Means Something
Articles, thoughts, observations and/or poetry about the same from a Bahá’í perspective regarding life and psychology; a most worthwhile read no matter what the topic or posting…

Myriad Lives
A site devoted to postings and discussion of Bahá’í Sriptures…

Bahá’í Thoughts and Ideass

Everybody Means Something
Articles, thoughts, observations and/or poetry about the same from a Bahá’í perspective regarding life and psychology; a most worthwhile read no matter what the topic or posting…

Myriad Lives
A site devoted to postings and discussion of Bahá’í Sriptures…

Louvain95
An intelligent site I have discovered that features the visual arts with taste and care for beauty and couched in a love of humanity…

Notes from an Alien
Notes from an Alien is an especially informative and interactive site dedicated to the subject of writers, writing, publishing, and encouragement to publish creative material. If one is interested in self-publishing as opposed to the traditional route of

Visual Arts Sites

Louvain95
An intelligent site I have discovered that features the visual arts with taste and care for beauty and couched in a love of humanity…

Writers of Poetry

Wrting and Writers

Notes from an Alien
Notes from an Alien is an especially informative and interactive site dedicated to the subject of writers, writing, publishing, and encouragement to publish creative material. If one is interested in self-publishing as opposed to the traditional route of